MP3 player newbie ready to purchase a Clix ...

[Nelson]

I discovered this site yesterday while searching for MP3 player reviews. Very nice. Being new to the MP3 player world, I have some newbie questions.

I’m ready to purchase my first (!) player, and was leaning towards a Sansa e260 due to price / features. They are on sale for $109 at Circuit City right now, including the charger. But some negatives:

1) The thumbwheel and buttons are awkward to use. Online reviews indicated this, I agree.

2) I hit the FM radio button to see what the screen looked like and the thing totally froze. One of the clerks could not unlock it either. We tried for several minutes.

3) Many of the threads on the Sansa forum on this site seem to be about problems.

My questions:
1) Somewhere in one of the many reviews I read yesterday said you could either use Windows Media Player, OR you could drag files to your player, but not both. I have a large collection of MP3 files stashed on an external drive. I expect I will subscribe to an online service, so will want to do both. I can’t recall if this was an issue with the Sansa or the Clix. Comments?

2) I’ll be using the player a lot in the gym. Presumably the iRiver armband does not block access to the volume buttons. I can’t quite tell from the online photo. These buttons, by the way, are a big advantage – not having to use the thumbwheel to just change the volume. It looks like the Mistic Audio armband would be awkward in this regard.

3) I see from this site that it is possible to replace the battery. Has anyone ever actually done this? I don’t subscribe to the “you’ll want a new player when the battery dies anyway” theory.

4) On a related note the lack of a charger is a definite negative of the Clix. Any more news on this. I found the long thread on chargers here, seems to be confusion on this subject, but the last post was in September.

5) I might as well wait for the 4GB version to be available, right? I like the black case, wonder if they will come out with a black armband?!

Thanks in advance.

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